FindJodi.com breaks single-day website traffic record

The CBS 48 Hours special ‘FindJodi’ generated a lot of interest in Jodi’s case. As a result, FindJodi.com saw the most visits in a single day in the history of the website (which more than doubled the previous record held several months ago). If you are new to this website, welcome. We’re glad you’re here.

Gary Peterson and I started ‘FindJodi’ back in 2003 in Austin, Minnesota. Gary was News Director at KAAL-TV back then and hired me as a Weekend News Anchor/Reporter. We both had a passion for missing person cases. It only seemed fitting that we started work on Jodi’s case. In November of 2004 we aired The Huisentruit File on KAAL-TV.

Gary and Me in Orlando meeting to discuss Jodi’s case (March 2012)

We registered the domain name findjodi.com in a few years later, in 2005. Then in September of 2005, we launched the first iteration of FindJodi.com. It was a site we updated daily, even if there wasn’t an update to report. That wasn’t realistic (we quickly learned), so we started updating it monthly or when there was a development.  According to this screenshot, we received our first donation in February 2006. That was clearly a big deal!

FindJodi.com homepage from February 2006.

We would go on to develop the website and add more content and follow up on the leads we tackled and the people we interviewed. In looking at these screenshots, it’s crazy to think we thought the 12 year anniversary was a long time. Little did we know the ride would be a lot longer than anticipated.

FindJodi.com Home Page from July 3, 2007

We would continue to iterate the website. We introduced a message board and have changed it several times to the dismay of a lot of dedicated followers (sorry!). Technology was always difficult to appease in those early years.

We would go on to add more members to our team. And we’d continue to add content to the website and redesign its look and feel. Over time, we’d see spikes of traffic any time a national outlet aired an update or a special on the case. This next screenshot was from a redesign that came in about 2010 or so.

FindJodi.com Home Page from February 2011.

The website look and feel would change at least one or two more times before the current theme. But it’s not just the website that is seeking great growth. Just today we reached 6,000 likes on our Facebook page. We thank all of you who follow the page. We post updates to Facebook almost immediately, so please follow and like the page to stay up on the latest information in Jodi’s case.

Facebook notification of 6,000 page likes on December 16, 2018.

I would like to sincerely thank every one of you who stops by the website, signs up for the newsletter, visits and follows our Facebook and Twitter accounts and helps us keep Jodi’s story out in the open.

We run entirely on donations. If you’d ever like to help our cause, please donate. Your money will go to expenses incurred on travel, interviews, technology, our entity and more. We recently had a generous donor come forward at the end of last year. That contribution was used to put up 4 billboards around Mason City,  Iowa. Those efforts caught the attention of CBS 48 Hours and they proceeded with their investigation and subsequent special. Thank you to all donors to this website and effort.

Thank you for helping us work to FindJodi.